


Driving with the top down

by rusalka (marinarusalka)



Category: Guarding Tess (1994)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-11
Updated: 2008-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinarusalka/pseuds/rusalka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't follow the rules <em>all</em> your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driving with the top down

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to eowyns and athenejen for beta help and general encouragement.
> 
> Written for Yahtzee

 

 

The morning after Tess came home from the hospital, Doug came into her room to find all the windows wide open, curtains tucked up over their rods. It was thirty-six degrees outside, and the air inside the room couldn't have been much warmer. Tess was huddled under the covers, wearing a thick wool hat and matching gloves.

Doug wanted to say, "What the hell are you doing?" He wanted to say, "Are you insane? You'll catch pneumonia and die!" What he actually said was, "Good morning, Mrs. Carlisle." Then he set the breakfast tray on top of the bedside table and went to close the nearest window.

"Leave it," Tess snapped as he reached for the sash.

Doug paused, considered shutting the window anyway, then lowered his hands and turned around.

"It's freezing in here," he said, "and your nose is dripping."

"My nose is perfectly fine." Tess sniffed loudly and burrowed deeper under the covers. "I want the windows open. There's no _air_ in this goddamn room."

No air. Right. Doug spared a moment to regret not shooting off the rest of Earle's toes. And maybe a few other body parts, too. "Would you like to eat downstairs? The dining room is very airy."

"I would not." Tess glared at him. "Hand me that tray."

Doug handed over the tray and quietly left the room. He took his gun from the hall table, hesitated, then put it down again.

 _This is stupid._ His job was to protect Tess Carlisle from assassins and kidnappers, not the common cold. Then again, he hadn't done so well with the kidnappers, had he? This, at least, he could do something about.

There was a stack of spare blankets in the hallway linen closet. Doug took two of the thicker ones and carried them back into the bedroom.

Tess didn't say a word, just lifted the breakfast tray out of the way while Doug draped the extra blankets over her, then set it down again and began spreading jam on a croissant with a look of intense concentration. Doug was almost out the door when she finally spoke.

"Maybe you can close them _most_ of the way."

"Yes, ma'am." Doug carefully lowered each window sash, leaving about two inches of space at the bottom. "Is this okay?"

"It's fine." Tess put down the half-eaten croissant and stared moodily at her hands. "I'm not being difficult on purpose, you know."

"I know," Doug said.

"It's just that I couldn't sleep because the room was so stuffy. How am I supposed to sleep when I can't _breathe_?"

Doug had no idea what to say to that, so he just said "Yes, ma'am" again. That was always safe.

"We could put in a space heater," he added after a minute. "That would keep the room warm... warmer, even with the windows open."

"I'll think about it." Tess sighed. "Leave, Douglas. Let an old woman eat her breakfast in peace.

Doug left.

* * *

They did put in a space heater. Tess slept with the windows open for two weeks, and then one day she just stopped. Two days later, she announced that they were going to Cleveland, to see an exhibit of "Egyptian treasures" at the Museum of Art.

"I don't suppose you care much for Egyptian art," Tess said when she told him about the arrangements. They were on the lawn behind the house, Tess practicing her putting while Doug stood nearby with his hands in his pockets.

"No," Doug said, "I really, really don't."

"Of course not. So what kind of art do you like, Agent Chesnic?"

The formal address let him know she was teasing. It was "Tess" and "Douglas" most of the time now, and "Agent Chesnic" only when she was angry or teasing. Doug was pretty sure that his not liking Egyptian art wasn't going to make her angry.

"I'm partial to the Abstract Expressionists, myself," he said, and Tess broke off in mid-putt to straighten up and stare at him. He gave her a few seconds of deadpan silence, then grinned. "I'm making that up." He wasn't even sure what an Abstract Expressionist was, other than a phrase he remembered seeing in a newspaper once.

"I certainly hope so, or I'd have to fire you." Tess planted her feet, shifted her grip on the putter, and neatly tapped the ball into the Styrofoam cup she was using as a target. "If you were going into Cleveland on your own time, what would you wish to do?"

"I..." Doug had to stop and think about it. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd gone anywhere on is own time. "If it was later in the year, I suppose I might go to a baseball game." 

"A baseball game." Tess looked delighted. "How all-American of you, Agent Chesnic. Are you an Indians fan, then? No wait, you grew up near Chicago, didn't you? Cubs or White Sox?"

"Red Sox," Doug said. "My father grew up in Boston."

"My condolences." Tess lined up for another putt. "Move that cup about six inches to my left, will you?"

* * *

After the Egyptian exhibit, there was another trip to the opera three weeks later. Then a ballet performance in Philadelphia, then a piano recital in Cincinnati. There were gallery openings, charity dinners, a speech at a community college in Dayton.

"Remember when this was a nice, quiet assignment?" Lee muttered over breakfast one morning. "These days I think I spend more time in the goddamn car than I do in my bed."

"You owe a quarter to the cuss jar," Frederick told him.

"Fuck you," Lee said, and went to put fifty cents in.

"You mean she wasn't always like this?" Manuel asked. He was the new driver, and had gone through more background checks than possibly any other employee in the history of the Secret Service. ''So what happened?"

Lee opened his mouth and closed it again without saying a word. Frederick kept drinking his coffee and looking as if he hadn't noticed the conversation. Doug picked up his plate of scrambled eggs and carried it into the dining room.

They all knew perfectly well what had happened, they just weren't about to say it. Manuel would figure it out soon enough. After all, he was the one who drove Tess to the OSU Cancer Center in Columbus every other Wednesday, where they all waited outside for several hours while Tess did whatever it is that people with inoperable brain tumors do in hospitals. She never talked about it, but the collection of pill bottles in the main bathroom's medicine cabinet grew larger after every visit.

Doug carried his half-eaten breakfast back into the kitchen and tossed it into the trash. 

* * *

"Douglas, dear, could you come in here for a moment?" Tess's voice was so sweet and innocently casual that Doug automatically tensed to attention. It was never a good sign when Tess Carlisle sounded like that.

"Cover me," he muttered, only half-kidding, and went into the living room.

Tess was over by the stereo, inserting a CD just as Doug walked in.

"Over here," she said briskly, and pointed to a spot on the floor next to her. "Stand right here."

Doug came over and stood where he was told. Tess pressed the play button on the stereo, and the opening notes of "Blue Danube" drifted from the speakers.

"All right, here's what I need you to do." She stood at Doug's side and held her arms out in front of her as if embracing an imaginary dance partner. "Hold your arms like this. Step forward with your left foot. Now bring your right foot forward and to the side like so... good. Step in with your left..."

"Tess."

"Now back with your right..."

"Tess."

"Now bring your left fo--"

"Tess!"

"Douglas!" She mimicked his exasperated rise in tone precisely, matching it with a glare. "Don't you yell at me."

"You weren't listening."

"That's no excuse." Tess reached over to the stereo and paused the music. "All right, what is it then?"

"I already know how to waltz."

That actually rendered her speechless for about five seconds. "...You do?"

Doug suppressed a smug grin. Mostly. "I do."

Tess stared at him for another moment, then clicked the music back on, stepped toward Doug and held out her hands. "Very well, then. Waltz."

"You mean you'll actually let me _lead_?" Doug muttered. Tess just glared at him again, so he took her hands and began to count steps in his head.

It had been years since he'd done this, and the steps felt awkward and unfamiliar, but he managed to get them both across the room, into a turn, and back again without tripping or bumping into anything. Tess's hands felt warm and surprisingly strong in his. If he breathed deeply, he could smell her perfume. Some sort of flower scent. She'd told him once, but he couldn't remember.

 _One_ -two-three, _One_ -two-three... Wisteria. That was it.

She tipped her head back a little to smile up at him. "Well, Agent Chesnic. You've succeeded in astonishing me. Congratulations."

"Thank you." Doug signaled an underarm turn, feeling suddenly ambitious, and Tess glided through it right on cue.

"May I ask _why_ you know how to waltz? Because you really don't seem like the type."

 _One_ -two-three, _One_ -two-three... Doug kept moving, gaze resolutely fixed on a distant point above and behind Tess's head. "Eileen -- my ex -- signed us up for lessons before the wedding. It was important to her that we looked good at the reception." The dance lessons had lasted longer than the marriage had.

"You learned extremely well," Tess said.

It was stupid to feel a warm glow over being praised for such a small thing. He was a professional. He'd mastered much more demanding and necessary skills than ballroom dance. And yet, here he was, smiling.

"Don't sound so surprised," he said. "This is exactly the sort of thing you should've expected me to be good at."

"Is it?"

"Absolutely. I'm very well-coordinated and good at following instructions."

"Oh, I'll bet you are," Tess drawled, voice low and amused, and Doug felt his face grow hot.

"Dip," he said to provide a distraction, because if Tess saw him blushing, she'd never let him hear the end of it.

She laughed and dipped backwards into his arms, perfectly balanced, as if she'd always belonged there.

It was kind of a relief when the song ended. Doug solemnly thanked Tess for the dance and escaped back into the kitchen, where he was greeted by a standing ovation.

"Well done, Special Agent Astaire." Lee thumped him on the shoulder. "I guess now we know why she's kept you around all these years."

Doug put a fistful of change in the cuss jar before he responded to that one.

* * *

If he was going to be perfectly honest with himself about it, that wasn't the first time Doug had ever wanted to kiss Tess Carlisle. It wasn't even the tenth.

It was just the first time he'd contemplated actually doing it.

* * *

"I hope I didn't embarrass you too much this afternoon," Tess said when Doug brought a pot of hot chocolate up to her room that evening. "It's just that I hadn't danced since my husband died, and I've been thinking lately about how much I missed it."

"I didn't mind." Doug gave an awkward shrug. "Actually, I enjoyed it. A lot."

"Did you now?" Tess's smile grew wicked. "So did I. A lot. We'll have to do it again sometime."

"I would like that," Doug said, and was a little surprised to discover how much he meant it.

He turned to go, but Tess leaned forward and brushed her fingers against his sleeve.

"Sit with me a while," she said. "Have some hot chocolate."

Doug didn't really care for hot chocolate, but he went to fetch a mug from downstairs anyway. On second thought, he also fetched the bottle of brandy from the back of the kitchen cabinet. Tess would appreciate it, he thought, and it would make the sticky sweetness of the chocolate go down easier.

He came back upstairs to find Tess curled up on the floor in front of her armchair, breathing hard and grinding her fists against her temples.

"Tess!" Doug let the mug and the brandy bottle clatter to the floor as he dropped to his knees at her side. The pulse at her throat was strong but much too fast, and her skin felt warmer than he thought it should've. Doug took a couple of deep, calming breaths and started to rise to his feet. "I'll get Frederick."

"No." She grabbed his wrist and pulled. There was no strength in it, but Doug sank back down anyway. "I'll be fine. Help me to lie down."

"It could be--" Actually, he had no idea what it could be, only that it couldn't be good.

"It's just a headache," Tess insisted through gritted teeth. "They come and go. Frederick can't do anything about them, and I'd rather you didn't get the whole house in a panic over it. Now either help me to the bed or get the hell out."

Swearing at him was probably a good sign. Doug lifted her up and carried her to the bed, helped her to sit up with a pile of pillows propped behind her back.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked. 

Tess sat still for a minute with her head tilted back and her eyes closed.

"Medicine cabinet," she muttered after a while. "Large blue bottle with yellow label."

Doug fetched the bottle and a Dixie cup full of water from the bathroom, then watched closely while Tess gulped down what looked like way too many pills.

"Thank you." She crumpled the empty cup into a ball and dropped it on the nightstand. "I should be all right in a-- is that the brandy on the floor?"

Doug glanced over to the corner by the door, where the bottle and his empty mug had rolled.

"You are not mixing painkillers with alcohol," he said firmly. "Don't even try to argue with me about that one."

Tess looked as if she might argue anyway, then sighed and let her head loll back onto the pillows again.

"You're no fun," she grumbled.

"I'm Secret Service," Doug said, "I'm not supposed to be fun."

"Ah. And you're always exactly what you're supposed to be, aren't you, Agent Chesnic?" Tess managed a smile when she said that, though her face was still pale and tight. "Can you sit with me until the pills kick in? I promise, there will be no fun involved."

Doug sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand. "I think I can manage that."

* * *

Despite Tess's insistence that the headache was a normal occurrence, Doug managed to convince himself that something had gone horribly wrong, so he was surprised and dizzily relieved when their next visit to OSU took no longer than usual. He got all of thirty seconds to enjoy that relief before Tess stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and glanced up at the ominous-looking gray clouds that were gathering over Columbus. 

"Why don't you boys wait here for a bit," she said, addressing Manuel and Lee inside the car. "Agent Chesnic and I are going to take a stroll."

Doug took it as a minor moral victory that both men in the car actually turned to look at him rather than just do as they were told.

"That's right," he said, and held out his arm for Tess to take. "We'll be back in an hour."

"Or longer," Tess said.

"An hour," Doug repeated, and let her lead him away from the car.

It was spring break week, and the campus was emptier than usual. Doug kept a sharp eye out as they walked, but saw nothing more threatening than some kids playing a clumsy game of hacky sack on the lawn behind Pomerene Hall. The handful of pedestrians they encountered showed no sign of recognizing a First Lady in their midst, and none of the cars on Neil Avenue slowed down as they passed.

"Relax." Tess squeezed his arm lightly. "Do you really think there are terrorists waiting in the shrubbery on the off chance that I might've decided to take a walk?"

"No," Doug said, "but I didn't think your chauffeur was going to kidnap you from a picnic, ether."

"Poor Douglas." Tess shook her head. "You're never going to get over the trauma, are you?" 

Doug thought that was pretty rich coming from someone who'd spent two weeks sleeping with the windows open in the middle of an Ohio winter. Then again, Tess wasn't doing that anymore, and he was still looking for terrorists in the bushes. 

"It's not trauma," he said, "it's just me doing my job."

"Of course it is." Tess smiled serenely. "Come on, let's get away from the big scary street with all the big scary cars."

She tugged on his arm and drew him away from the main street and onto a winding path that ended at Mirror Lake.

They found a bench with a good view of the fountains and sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.

"It's not getting any bigger," Tess said abruptly.

Doug blinked at her. "What?"

"The tumor. It's not getting any bigger." Tess folded her gloved hands in her lap and stared intently at them as she spoke. The gloves were dark blue wool, the same color as her scarf and slightly darker than her cashmere coat. She was wearing her pearls, too. Tess always made an extra effort to look polished for the trips to Columbus.

"That's good," Doug said. "Isn't it?"

"So they tell me. If it keeps not getting bigger, I could go on like this for years. Decades. Hell, I might actually die of old age." Her fingers flexed into fists, then slowly relaxed again. "Or I might drop dead tomorrow. No one really knows."

Doug had no idea what to say to that, so he kept his mouth shut. Tess didn't seem to want a response anyway, as she plowed on with barely a pause for breath.

"Under the circumstances, Agent Chesnic, I'm sure you understand why I don't worry much about regulations and social conventions these days. Why I wish to golf in the freezing cold and picnic in the snow and waltz in my living room on random Monday mornings. I don't have the luxury, you see, of putting off doing the things I really want to do."

Doug nodded. "I understand that."

"Good," Tess said, "then I expect you'll understand this." And then she kissed him.

For a moment, Doug froze, torn between equal and opposite reactions of "Oh God, _yes!_ " and "Oh fuck, I'll be guarding junior diplomats in Greenland for the rest of my life." Then Tess gripped his coat collar to pull him closer, and he decided Greenland was a small price to pay.

Tess kissed the same way she did everything else: with great enthusiasm and no regard for propriety. She made a small, contented sound in her throat when Doug started to kiss her back, and scooted forward until she was practically in his lap. Doug made himself keep his eyes open, but it really made no difference. The entire PLO could've come climbing out of the shrubbery with grenades and machine guns, and he wouldn't have noticed.

"So," she said when they finally came up for air, "how many regulations did you break just now, Agent Chesnic?"

"Pretty much all of them," Doug said, and kissed her again.

* * *

People who live under Secret Service protection have very little privacy. Doug had always viewed this as a necessary evil.

After a couple of weeks of figuring out non-incriminating ways to be alone with Tess, he was starting to have his doubts.

* * *

"We're going to a baseball game next week," Tess announced.

Doug looked up from his newspaper. "You hate baseball."

"Nonsense," she huffed. "Baseball is the great American pastime. All politicians love it. Anyway, we're going on Thursday. The Indians are playing the Red Sox."

"Thursday's my birthday," Doug said.

Tess looked smug. "I know."

* * *

"We're not stupid, you know," Lee said one afternoon over lunch.

"Excuse me?" Doug put down his turkey and Swiss on whole wheat, and stared at Lee across the table. 

"I'm just saying. We're all trained Secret Service agents here. We get paid to notice things. We're not stupid."

"Okay," Doug said. "I knew that."

"We're also very discreet. Part of the job and all."

"Right," Doug said. "Got it. That's... good to know."

"You realize that if this gets out, you'll have to change your name and move to Moldavia just to get a job as a fry cook?"

"The thought has occurred to me." Doug shrugged. "I decided it's worth it."

Lee nodded, looking satisfied, and they finished their sandwiches in silence.

* * *

"Douglas, I would like your advice." Tess sounded worried and hesitant, which in itself was cause for immediate alarm. Doug put down his tea cup and sat up straight.

"What is it?"

They were having tea in Tess's room, something that had become an evening ritual for them in the past couple of months. Leo and Manuel had begun to smirk every time they saw Doug heading upstairs with the tray, and nothing he tried to say could convince them that half the time, they were in fact just having tea.

Actually, at the moment they weren't having tea, either. Tess was slumped in her armchair, gazing into an empty cup, while Doug sat ramrod-straight on a nearby ottoman and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Tess?"

"I'm considering having a press conference," she said. "About my illness."

Doug's chest felt painfully tight, the way it always did when Tess brought up the subject.

"Why now? It's not getting worse, is it?"

"No," Tess sighed. "It's the same as ever. And you know how I feel about dragging my personal business out in public. But I've been talking with the staff at the Cancer Center and..." She trailed off, turning the tea cup around and around in her hands.

"And?" Doug prompted.

"They think it would make a difference. To funding, to donations, to public awareness. Like a celebrity endorsement, I suppose. Apparently, enough people still care about what happens to me to make a political impact."

"Do you want to do it?" Doug asked.

Tess shrugged. "I think they may be right about it making a difference. And it might be a... a more meaningful thing to be remembered for than a small-town library."

"But do you want to do it?"

"I can't decide. I suspect it won't be any fun." She looked up and smiled at him, and the room abruptly felt lighter. "That's why I'm asking you. After all, you used to be such an expert on not being any fun, before you loosened up."

"You mean before you brazenly seduced me in a public park," Doug said. Tess tried and failed to look offended.

"No, seriously, Douglas, what do you think?"

Doug hesitated, then took Tess's hand and pressed it to his lips for a moment before speaking.

"I think," he said, "that you're the last person in the world who needs to worry about what she'll be remembered for. I know all the charity work you've done -- I'm the one who had to guard you when you did it, remember? You don't owe anybody anything, so don't do it because you think you're obligated. But if you think it's the right thing to do, then yes, I think you should do it. I think you'd do a fantastic job of it, because that's what you always do."

Tess put her cup down, then took off her glasses and carefully placed them on the nightstand.

"Thank you, Douglas. That was reasonably inspiring for an impromptu speech."

"Glad I could help."

"Come here now. I'm going to brazenly seduce you again."

" _Yes, ma'am._ "

* * *

Tess had been pacing for twenty minutes, glaring at the color-coded index cards in her hands as if she were trying to set them on fire with her eyes.

"I hate press conferences," she growled.

"No, you don't," Doug said, "you just hate this one. Sit down; I'm getting tired just watching you."

"Don't tell me what to do," Tess snapped, then sat down anyway. "Fine, you're right. I hate _this_ press conference."

"You don't have to do it, you know. Just say so, and I'll go kick them all out."

"You would, wouldn't you?" Tess gave him a warm look. "Twenty newspaper reporters and three TV crews, and you'd go out there and march them all out at gunpoint if I changed my mind."

"Absolutely," Doug said. "Well, maybe not at gunpoint. Unless you really wanted me to."

"It's tempting." Tess frowned at the index cards again. "This will make our lives much more complicated, you know. One press conference isn't going to do the job. There will have to be more public appearances, interviews, talk show appearances. Possibly some lobbying in Washington."

What she really meant, Doug knew, was that Tess Carlisle was about to start receiving a great deal of media scrutiny. Which would make sleeping with the head of her Secret Service detail a much riskier proposition.

"We can deal with it," he said. "Hell, knowing you, you'll enjoy the challenge once you really get going."

"Hey, guys." The door opened a crack and Lee stuck his head in. "Two minutes." 

"Thank you, Agent Danielson." Tess stood up, slipped the index cards into her pocket, and tugged on the hem of her tailored tweed jacket. "I'm ready now. Oh, and Douglas?"

"Tess?"

"No matter how it turns out, I refuse to regret a thing."

"Damn right," Doug said. "No regrets."

He let her take his arm, and they walked out to the podium together.

 


End file.
